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| Born | 23 August 1999 Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Saya Sakakibara (born 23 August 1999) [1] is an Australian cyclist competing in BMX racing events.
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| Born | 23 August 1999 Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Saya Sakakibara (born 23 August 1999) [1] is an Australian cyclist competing in BMX racing events.
Sakakibara was born on the Gold Coast, Queensland, to a mother of Japanese heritage and a father of British citizenship. [2] She started BMX racing at the age of four after watching her older brother Kai competing. [3] [4] The family moved to Sydney in 2007 and Sakakibara joined the South Illawarra BMX Club where her brother Kai was a member. She then began competing on the junior circuits and quickly rose through the ranks winning state and national titles. [5]
Sakakibara is in a relationship with French BMX rider Romain Mahieu. [6] She was the subject of ABC TV's Australian Story broadcast on 20 October 2025 [7] [8] . Her autobiography Just Go: Turning fear into a superpower was published by Simon & Schuster on 28 October 2025 [9] .
Sakakibara has represented Australia at World Championship level. She won a silver medal in the Junior Elite BMX Supercross at the 2017 World Championships. She was awarded AusCycling's Female BMX Racing Rider of the Year in 2020. [10] She was selected for the delayed 2020 Summer Olympics as part of the Australian team. [11] [12] She crashed in the semi-finals of the Olympics and did not qualify for the final. [13]
She won the 2023 UCI BMX Racing World Cup and retained her title in Tulsa in 2024. [14]
She won gold at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. [15] She was jointly awarded the Sir Hubert Opperman Trophy of 2024, along with Grace Brown, for the Australian cyclist of the year. [16]
She won a silver medal the 2025 BMX World Championships in Denmark. [17] She won her third World Cup in 2025 after winning the final two rounds in Argentina. [18]
